Lord of Prayer

Chapter 56: Chapter 50: Wish Radar

The sea of collective unconscious—also known as the Dream World, the Inner World, the Spiritual World, or the Spirit World—was an ethereal yet real place, formed from the thoughts, consciousness, and emotions of all humanity, so vast as to be boundless.

One of the seven living Gods, the “Dream Lord,” was the deity who guarded the Spirit World.

The Star Association had extremely strict measures to protect the Spirit World. They established special departments like the Dreamwalkers and spent astronomical resources annually to maintain the normality and purity of the sea of collective unconscious, lest it be eroded by Abyssal Power.

The sea of collective unconscious was a projection of all human consciousness. If it were ever contaminated by Abyssal Power, the resulting losses would be far from trivial. There was no room for carelessness.

Zhou Chen never imagined that the Wish Bottle would bring him here. This was no place for a mere Tier One Ascender like him.

’Does this count as illegal entry?’

He looked around guiltily, afraid that special departments like the Dreamwalkers would detect anomalous external data and come after him.

After waiting for a long time with no incident, he slowly relaxed and began to examine the bubbles floating around him, processing the new memories from the Wish Bottle.

’This is the sea of collective unconscious, but the Wish Bottle has performed some kind of ’purification.’ It’s filtered out most things, leaving only the wishes that individuals subconsciously want to fulfill…’

’Like a… Wish Radar?’

Zhou Chen stroked his chin, pondering. ’Now I can use these bubbles to understand the wishes in people’s hearts. No more asking or guessing one by one. I guess I have clear objectives now… How wide is the range for these Wishers? It can’t possibly be the whole World, right?’

He tried to walk around but found he could only move within a very small area. If he went too far, his body would feel as if it were filled with lead, making it impossible to walk. Only when he backed up to his original position did his body feel light again.

Furthermore, he would also feel tired. If his Spiritual Power couldn’t support him, he would likely be forced out of this place automatically.

’Based on this distance, I can’t even leave my dorm building. Is the range really only as big as my dorm?’

After a moment of contemplation, Zhou Chen decided to try an experiment. He reached out and poked a bubble to his right.

The bubble felt soft and resilient, not popping from his touch. The next second, a fragment of the corresponding subconscious thought appeared before his eyes.

It was a nineteen-year-old girl with glasses named Xiao Xuan, a student at Jinzhu University. She was in her dorm room, picking her feet while slowly tapping at her keyboard. Every so often, she would glance at a group chat on her phone, then slack off for half the day before continuing to write. She was serializing a novel called *Rebirth of the Great Villainess* on “Zhongdian Novel Net.” One of her biggest wishes right now was for someone to give her a huge donation, which would both earn her money and bring exposure to her work. It would be even better if she could latch onto a wealthy patron.

“…”

Zhou Chen scratched his head, his expression complicated. ’This wish is actually pretty simple for me. I could give it a try. But can’t this girl stop picking her feet while she writes? The smell must be getting all over the keyboard…’

Now he was certain that the “Wish Radar’s” range wasn’t just limited to the dorm building. It even extended beyond the Star Association to encompass the area of Jinzhu University.

If he were to draw a circle on a map with the distance from here to Jinzhu University as the radius, the resulting area would envelop more than half of Jinzhu City, leaving only some suburban areas uncovered. The range was terrifyingly vast.

’Let’s try again…’ Zhou Chen made another attempt, reaching out to poke a nearby bubble and receiving the corresponding information.

A scantily clad female streamer was dancing energetically in her live stream, occasionally answering questions from the audience. Her greatest wish was to be noticed by a rich viewer and receive a huge donation, or to be kept by a sugar daddy.

He poked another one.

A young man sitting at his computer desk angrily threw down his controller. This was the one hundred and thirty-fourth time he had died to the boss. Humiliated and enraged, he now had only one wish in his heart: to kill this damn boss.

’This guy sucks…’ Zhou Chen commented silently, then continued poking.

A student doing homework in their bedroom was tearing their hair out in frustration. Overwhelmed by the mountain of assignments, they wished someone would blow up the school.

’Keep going… wait!’

Zhou Chen was startled. ’Why is this student’s wish so dark? Are they from the DC Universe or something?’

’Logically, shouldn’t their wish be to finish their homework? Why would it be to blow up the school?’

After a moment of silent thought, Zhou Chen quickly figured it out: a person’s heart is never completely bright. Just as there are normal, beautiful wishes, there will naturally be malicious and evil ones too.

It was just as the saying goes: there are two things in this world one cannot gaze at directly—the Sun, and the human heart.

Gazing at the Sun will burn your eyes, while gazing at the human heart will inevitably lead to disappointment. The dark side of human nature, the treacherous depths of the human heart—both are immeasurable.

Therefore, it was actually quite normal to harbor all sorts of evil wishes. The vast majority of people could suppress these malevolent thoughts, keeping them confined to their minds. Who hasn’t had an improper thought in their entire life?

’Besides seeing proper wishes, I can also see improper ones. In a way, it’s like peeking into the evil thoughts in people’s hearts… Why does this feel like being a peeping tom? Oh no, am I going to gradually turn into a psychopath?’ Zhou Chen scratched his head, looking at the bubbles floating around him.

On the surface, the bubbles all looked identical, differing only in size. There was no way to tell a proper wish from an evil one. It was like opening a blind box; you never knew what you were going to get.

Since there was no way to avoid it, he could only learn to adapt and treat it as a form of spiritual tempering… Zhou Chen helplessly accepted this reality.

At this moment, the four bubbles he had touched were floating in front of him. No matter which way he turned, they would follow, maintaining an invisible yet tangible connection with him that he could sever at any time.

Zhou Chen tried severing the connection to the third and fourth bubbles. With a soft POP, both bubbles burst and vanished without a trace.

At the same time, two new bubbles rose up from the sea of collective unconscious below.

He wanted to continue collecting Wish Bubbles, but the feeling of his thoughts scattering grew more severe. His mind felt overdrawn, and his head ached unbearably.

’Only ten minutes and I’m already at my limit? I guess I’ll have to wait until next time to explore its other functions and uses…’ Zhou Chen’s headache intensified. He immediately stopped lingering, closed his eyes, and began to practice Meditation. His consciousness quickly became erratic, as if it were ascending and descending at the same time, before rapidly returning to the real World.

He was still lying on his bed in the dorm, not having moved at all. He reached for the phone by his pillow and checked the time. Only about ten minutes had passed, confirming the time flow was one-to-one.

After waiting for a moment and receiving no questions from Jiang Che or a visit from the medical team, Zhou Chen confirmed that the physical examination device hadn’t detected the recent anomaly. He couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.

He recalled the first two Wish Bubbles he had seen and decided to take action.